Falcons sprint past Huskies

Saturday

Dec 23, 2000 at 12:01 AM

Catch them if you can Wayne County Athletic League boys basketball teams.

The Hillsdale Falcons proved they're the team to beat in the conference as senior Joey Brightbill keyed two 11-0 runs in the second half and the hosts sprinted to a 76-49 win over Northwestern in front of a standing-room only crowd Friday.

The battle of league unbeatens lived up to is pregame hype after a back-and-forth first half saw the Falcons (6-0, 3-0) take a slim 29-25 lead.

However, the second half turned into a track meet, led by who else other than Brightbill, the WCAL's track MVP last spring.

The Huskies (4-2, 2-1) cut the deficit to 31-29 when guard Steve Kline drained a 3-pointer at the six-minute mark of the third quarter, but Brightbill led Hillsdale on a sudden surge and it would lead by double figures the rest of the way.

Brightbill, a 5-foot-11 point guard, scored seven of his game-high 22 points in an 11-0 run in the third quarter. He added another hoop and three assists during an 11-0 blitz to open the fourth.

The standout sprinter and long jumper in track scored on three fastbreak layups early in the third quarter, the last of which he followed with a foul shot after being hacked on the way to the hoop. One of the layups came after he cleanly picked the dribble of a Husky guard, while the other two followed missed shots.

Brightbill nearly added a fourth layup in the first 11-0 spurt, but even after he missed, good things happened. Teammate Dave Bunt soared above the rim to tip in the carom and cap the run that put the Falcons up 42-29 before the Huskies knew what happened.

"Right now there's no question, they're the team to beat," Northwestern coach Mark Alberts said. "I think you've gotta play two complete halves against them to have a chance.

"We played a pretty complete first half and had a chance right at the beginning of the second. You're going to have to play two, though, because they have so many weapons. Brightbill makes them go and in the second half he's the reason they went on that run."

Northwestern actually outscored Hillsdale after its drought to close the third period and entered the final eight minutes down 45-34.

However, the fourth quarter saw the Falcons turn the heat up again as they finished with a 31-15 advantage.

After a cold-shooting first half by the Falcons, Brightbill's play seemed to relax his teammates, who all sudden found their range.

"We didn't play our best in the first half and we missed a couple of shots we had been making," said Honaker, who is trying to get Hillsdale over the hump after three straight second-place finishes. "We made a couple of adjustments at the half, the kids hit a couple of shots early and that was the difference.

"We normally get a lot of turnovers off our press, but (Friday) we got them off our half-court defense -- just our quickness and our trapping. I thought Josh Wolf did a nice job on (Jake) Frank and we had good balance again on offense."

Frank, who entered the game leading the area with just under 28 points a game, was held to 20 as he hit less than 50 percent of his field goal attempts.

The reigning WCAL basketball MVP was hampered by a heavily taped knee.

"It's kind of a mystery injury," Alberts said. "Jake said he did it in practice Thursday, but it started bothering him later."

Kline added 14 off the bench and sophomore Roy Woodring (seven points, 11 rebounds) stepped up with center Matt Warner sidelined by injury. However, only one other Husky scored more than two points.

"We were very happy to be where we were at the end of the first half," Alberts said. "We had the lead at one point and had been playing very well. We told the kids at the half the first 10 possessions of the second half were the key. The first five we did pretty well, because we had it 31-29. After that it went from 31-29 to 54-34 (with 5:53 left in the game)."

Northwestern's cold shooting was nearly as much to blame for its troubles as was the speed of the Falcons.

The Huskies hit just 18-of-57 field goals, including 7-of-20 on 3s. Without virtually no offense directed toward the basket in the second half, Northwestern didn't get to the foul line and finished just 6-of-9 for the game. Hillsdale hit 21-of-33 freebies.

"We had guys open for some of those 3s," Alberts said. "Really, all of them almost were open shots.

"It's hard to tell guys not to take that. The ones that we turned it over and they got the layups were the backbreakers. But also when we missed the 3s, we looked tired and couldn't get back on defense and they got the layups. That's what really hurt us -- that's the game in the nutshell right there."